living without alcohol, living again

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Tag Archives: Abraham J. Twerkski

Today I’ve spent reading and checking out running techniques on YouTube. Loooooove YouTube. So much info ready at hand. Fan of my laptop clogged up with dust? YouTube tells me how to unscrew everything and fix it. Want to know how to cook something? YouTube. Want to know about nutrients? YouTube. And you can also find loads of video’s there stating that drinking alcohol is not at all bad. 😦

I am still with the book Addictive Thinking. After my first clash with the book I continued when I thought my mind was open again. And I am almost finished but up to now I find it a little disappointing. It is more of a list of aspects of addictive thinking, a useful list, yes, but I was hoping for more Aha Erlebnis / Aha effect. And of course I am hoping for extra special effects because I want things to be fantastic and normal is not good enough – which is of course listed as being an aspect of addictive thinking. 🙂

What I appreciate, and what makes me breathe a little easier (did I say I had this open mind?) is where he says: people who practise addictive thinking do not know that they do and it is of no use to pressure them into admitting things. That will only make them strengthen their walls. I agree with that from my own experience. I think GP1 saved me by saying: ‘Whatever you want and when you want it.’ That gave me the possibility to drop my walls at that moment.

My plan for the on-coming week is to follow The Plan in detail, to be exact and concise about it. No lingering, no ‘I’ll do that tonight.’ Order memory repair nutrients and thyroid and bile nutrients. And that’s it. I am trying to stop thinking that repair needs to come from the outside – very addicty conviction. Nutrients are good, but how can I insist on these if all my blood tests come out ok? I am trying to let go, but it is difficult because I also thought I have saved my health all these years by taking supplements. I don’t know. I’m not going to risk my sobriety over a few vitamin B-complex and Omega 3 pills but maybe I don’t need the full 2000 Euro deal ;-). Don’t have the money for that anyhow.

I also want to get back to loosing weight because due to the 4 meals a day to get my blood sugar level stable I have gained a kilo. Halfway through the week I’ll be going on a little trip with a friend, biking and walking in the homeland. Actually fearing a lack of private time. Should manage that.

All in all a boringly normal Sunday. 🙂 Happy that I quit. Through the blogosphere I was made aware of this article that says it all on being happy that I quit. She says; don’t give up drinking. And I agree. Be happy that you quit! I am happy that I quit. Slowly becoming aware that there still is a shitload of work to be done. But not now. Now it is autumn salad time: raw beet, carrot, apple, orange, celery, loads of parsley, chopped walnuts and grated fresh ginger. 🙂

Time. Time. Time. Time is a good concept and I screwed it up within me.

Twerski says people with addictive thinking mess with time (in their heads). I feel it has to do with shoving stuff out of the way. I did the lying, the denial and dodging consequences by changing plans. Plan and results / consequences are measurements of time, they give meaning to time, or? And I did the drinking more to not feel the feeling of doing things wrong. I am still doing it. I don’t want to be crisp and precise, it hurts, it shows me how I am lacking. I don’t like people that are crisp and precise, I feel stupid and guilty around them. I used to be crisp and precise. That was long time ago. Need to get back to that.

I thought I had let go of friends that would support drinking when I would finally quit. But I notice now that I hung on to people that are not precise. And I have let go of people that plan well and really make something of their life. I feel they don’t like me anymore because there is always something wrong with me and there is always a reason why I am not succesful with my own enterprise. I say ‘tired of doing it all by myself’ and ‘depressed’ and those are true, but in fact it was drinking and drinking. Now it is repair and repair.

So, in order to get back on the horse I need to be aware of the shoving and ditch it. (nice… ditching the shoving…) Face what is really happening with me. I am afraid. I can’t. Tried a little yesterday. It was horrible. The guilt is unbearable, don’t even dare to go there. GP1 said: ‘So the shame about your addiction prevents you from doing something about it. That is not very logical….’ So I quit, it took a while from there on but I kept that thought with me along the way. I feel what I do now is the same stuff but I can’t work it out. Can’t get my brain around it while it feels like it is right in front of me. Aah, I need to repair and get a healthy concept of time again but the guilt I feel over messing this up keeps me from getting healthy. There you are. 🙂

I think by now. well, by yesterday, I was hoping I had build me a bypass by happiness. I just quit and left the guilt and the feeling bad about the shoving for what it is. Guilt is not usefull, but it is there, and it needs to go, or be transformed, or what do you do with guilt? Because it shapes my actions and thoughts in a bad way.

Time to let go of the free floating structure of The Plan and make it precise. See what happens and what comes on the road. Am I ready to do that? I would be delighted to be able to do it. But I am not looking forward to the work that goes into being precise and not doing the shoving. Feel I need to read the Tibetan book of living and dying again. To me that is about feeling my way through choices. No. Trap 1: No other subject. Trap 2: No reading. Doing.

Twerski again. Not sure how to read this book. The crux is obviously not in the just reading it but in the doing stuff with it, discovering errors in thinking and internalizing a new, healthy approach. That is what I want. Well, that is what I was looking for.

And then I read it and I go berserk. First paragraph of the Foreword. Berserk!!! Not even written by Twerski. Feel attacked, feel like professionals in their white tower trying to make money of addicts.* I continue and very much dislike his tone and the way he has this smirk about how smart he is and how he knows it all. Projected, obviously but I don’t even have the quiet in my hands and head to pick up the book and look for an offending sentence – which in itself is a stupid thing to do but if I found one it would prove me right and that would be Very Good because if I am right I am superior!!! . Yeah!!!

It is quite well, not fully informative yet, but at least quite surprising how I sit here having a fight to this extent with a book and a man I don’t know. 🙂 Shiiiiiit.

*And I did a, not so much Freudian slip, but a slip of some sort with this sentence. This was the first version of it: ‘Feel attacked, feel like professionals trying to make money of addicts in their white towers.’ Ghegheghe. 😀 Don’t you come near my white tower!!!

Happy-ish that I quit. Not proud of my aggression. And disappointed, thought that everything was going easy-peasy, works out that I actually have to do stuff. Again! Pfffff…… 😉

The postman brought new books! Amongst which ‘Addictive Thinking – understanding self deception’ by Abraham J. Twerski. I have read the first few pages and believe I am in for a bumpy ride. It is about the nonsense addicts think and say to cover up the addiction. I call it junk speak – which in itself is addictive thinking because I am not a junk, I was (am?) alcohol dependent. Somehow, addictive thinking also has very much parallels to students telling me why they have not done their homework. 😉 But I am not supposed to say that because one might think that I am trying to down talk the addictive thinking… And I should not have said thát because it implies that I value socially acceptable answers above the truth – which is very addicty… And why would I even know that one could value the one above the other if I did not consider lying…. Aaaaaahrggggg!!!!!

Fucking get out of my mind! Piss off! And, maybe, just maybe, that is the whole point where I object against the (assumed?) tone of people speaking about addictive thinking. Fighting windmills here. I was going to put a grinning smiley here but I remember now how the invading interrogations of my mother and other adults left me baffeled and totally depleted much like I expect this subject to be. I grew up with 4 adults in the house. Nowhere to hide.

And I? About students and kids making excuses, or an addicted neighbour of mine, she repeats my funny stories to me with herself as the main subject?!! That is sad and la little embarrising but she thinks I am weird when I don’t laugh about her story. Difficult to deal with and I hate her lying about everything. Loosing jobs e.g., she turns up drunk, gets fired and the boss is an ass… Which brings us right to page 16:

Ironically, another characteristic of adddictive thinking is that while it distorts the thinking of addicts about themselves, it may not affect their attitudes towards others.

It is all nasty stuff, addictive thinking. But I feel I need to understand this because it feels like a big part of addiction and, with not doing the AA route and not telling people in my private life about my drinking addiction it is part of what I am missing out of so I’ld better get my hands on some material.

Unfortunately Twerksi continous:

Remember this, for it is important: Identification of addictive thinking must come from outside the addict.

Couldn’t you have told me that before I bought the book?! Well, suit yourself, since you say it is of no use to me I don’t have to read it. 😀 That was a joke. I guess. And that was the second joke. I am not supposed to say ‘I guess’ because, well, if you analyse the language content it is ‘hazy’ in the addict kind of unclear. Blablabla. As you see I am right into it. 🙂

So what’s with all the talking and the jokes? Not happy here. I am afraid of the paranoia that builds up immediately in me when dealing with the subject of addictive thinking. It is one of my big fears. I do know my thinking and acting got seriously screwed up by the alcohol. I noticed parts of my behaviour change and noticed starting to lie about stuff like saying I was tired after dinner and going home to have a few drinks (a few? LOADS!). I’d quickly hide empty bottles when visitors would arrive unannounced. I found it very dishonering. It made me sad and desperate and feel worthless about myself – that became part of what I wanted to drown. Strange that writing about that ignites craving. Must be a trigger.

And I, I still I continued drinking. Why? Because I knew I was addicted and thought / knew (?) I could not stop. I am guessing at that time I could not and that I stopped at them moment I could. But I will never know because alcohol is addictive, baffling and cunning and addiction will tell the drinker anything it wants and I bought into it. Well, no use in digging, waste of energy, need to focus on things that can and need to be changed. Or?

Happy that I did quit when I could. Happy in a tired way. I guess I hoped I was done and ready, seeing how easy everything went up to now. Works out that there’s a lot of stuff uncovered. Don’t want to go there. When I wrote this yesterday I became immensely tired of the darkness and the sudden racing of my brain. 😦 This is the first post I ‘edited’ a day after. Why? Quess paranoia, wanting to get it right. Don’t want to be ‘caught’. Which in itself…. pffffff.

It’s only a thin book, and small. So I’ll get to the next book ‘The Realm of the hungry ghost’ quickly. I am fantasising now that it should make for some lighter reading :-D. Which in itself is a time issue that is…. pfffffff. Aaaaahrgggggg!!!!!

Again, happy that I quit, but only so because I don’t have to do the previous weeks again. Proud? Nope. Apprehensive. Yes.